Hi all,
Very interesting discussion. I agree with Don about how to make good
quality frozen fish products. In Turkey, most people likes fish bought
as fresh despite ineffective cold storage such as using no ice in most
fish retailers. There is low demand for industrially frozen fish.
Nobody can argue the best quality of fresh fish over frozen, however,
depending on species and the condition of the fish, even if you kept
the fish in ice or cold storage, you will lose its favorable quality
over frozen fish after few days. No customer will prefer a fish
starting to show spoilage compare to effectively frozen fish.
The main problem is that so many fish freezing applicatios occur in
households especially where people living seasides around the world.
It is a fact that freezers in most houses has a freezing temperature
not below minus 30 degree celcius (may be minus 35 celcius maximum).
The other fact is that electricity cut occurs around the world
especially in Turkey (and no generator in such houses). Some people
even turn off the freezer for one or two hours during the day to save
energy (I even noticed my sister in law doing it until my warning).
These facts indicate that, in households there is no effective way of
freezing and frozen storage.
Therefore, we all know that slow freezing and temperature changes
during the frozen storage mean big ice crystals resulting bad quality
products.
Our aim should be to inform public about these problems and encourage
them consume frozen products from a well-known companies and provide
them from markets (especially supermarkets) where they have generators
in case of electricity cuts, to monitor temperature during storage.
That way we can change the consumers's judgment over frozen fish.
I advise seafood producers' to do this job employing a clever
advertising companies to get customers' attention. We scientists write
so many articles about such problems in magazines or newspapers but we
cannot change the customer behaviour as fast as what a good advert
would do in terms of customer's preference when it comes to their
taste issue.
Regards,
Sevim Kose
Seafood Scientist
Turkey
On 4/12/07, Don Tuma <dtuma@iprimus.com.au> wrote:
>
> May I make a few comments re the "difference" between fresh seafood which by
> definition has not been subjected to temps below minus 1 C. and frozen
> seafood which has.
>
> Seafood begins to freeze at about minus 1.5 C or about .5 C colder than
> ice/salt slurries. At about -1.5 C ice crystals start to form in flesh,
> permanent damage to eye tissue occurs and extremities such as fins begin to
> desiccate.
>
> The principal reason for "snap freezing" is to take the product through the
> temperature range of minus 1 through minus 5 C as quickly as possible to
> prevent formation of large ice crystals in flesh that will have a
> deleterious effect on flesh texture -- noticeable after thawing. Glazing
> techniques also help to prevent desiccation of body extremities so that
> seafood that has been frozen (here, as pointed out by Allan Bremmer, we need
> to insert "properly") may have few detectable differences when thawed and
> compared with fresh product relative to flavour and texture of flesh.
>
> But my experience with Australian public perceptions of labelling such as:
> fresh, fresh-frozen and frozen (but thawed for your convenience) agrees with
> Mark Boulter's comments in that there is a definite public preference for
> fresh, meaning never frozen, but kept iced.
>
> I don't know of any organoleptic testing that may have been undertaken as a
> means of providing a definitive range of differences between identical
> species that differ only as being either fresh or frozen. Might prove
> interesting.
>
> Regards,
>
> Don Tuma
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mark Boulter
> To: Steve_Lamming@youngsbluecrest.com ; seafood@ucdavis.edu
> Cc: Allan Bremner
> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 9:07 AM
> Subject: RE: "Fresh" vs Frozen.
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> What a very interesting question you pose Steve.
>
>
> I have attached below a copy of a section of the 'hot of the press'
> Australian Quality Index Manual, that was written by Allan Bremner, the
> respected seafood scientist. I think this will be useful to such a debate as
> it raises the issue of what parameters do you measure products against, to
> compare product A against product B, whether that be fresh vs frozen or
> supplier X vs supplier Y. I have found Allan's explainations of these
> issues to be very insightful.
>
> Here at Sydney Fish Market we have found that it is not so much what the
> technical 'freshness' of a product is that matters the most, but the
> public's opinion and market research that our company has conducted has
> shown that regardless of the technical merits of a frozen product the public
> prefers product that is 'fresh never frozen'.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mark Boulter
> Quality, Environment and Safety Manager
> Sydney Fish Market Pty Ltd
> Bank Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> QI and Freshness and Quality
>
>
>
> Freshness and quality are really marketing and consumer terms and have no
> scientific and technical validity, unless they are very tightly defined.
> Even then, disputes and confusion readily arise as both words (quality and
> freshness) are used in many different contexts and the user often slips
> between one context and the other, even within the one sentence. They are
> very useful, common, everyday terms but their use should be avoided in
> technical matters. Thus in assessing seafood, it is far better to stick to
> objective descriptions and to evaluate discrete properties and attributes
> (Bremner 2002).
>
>
>
> "Quality Index" is therefore used here in the sense that it provides a guide
> to the "quality" of the seafood when it is finally eaten. The term is
> adopted because of the widespread acceptance and understanding of the
> European Quality Index Method (QIM).
>
>
>
> The Australian Seafood Standard states that "fresh" seafood refers to
> product that has not been frozen, cooked, or preserved by any method other
> than chilling. This meaning of the word as applied to seafood that has not
> been frozen is common. Freshness is also often used in the context of time
> elapsed since the fish was harvested but, strictly speaking, the temperature
> must also be taken into account so that this concept of freshness can be
> related to the number of icedays. Sometimes fresh is also used in the
> context of meaning 'freshly thawed' for frozen product that has just been
> thawed, or in the phrase 'freshly cooked' for product just recently cooked,
> perhaps even from frozen and thawed material.
>
>
>
> The word quality can bring in several more concepts such as the end use for
> the product, the workmanship involved in preparing it, whether it is to be
> fried, baked or steamed for example, or whether it's colour is more
> acceptable in the market place, as may happen with Atlantic Salmon. These
> examples indicate the multiplicity of problems that occur with the use of
> the words freshness and quality. It is much less controversial to use
> descriptors of attributes and properties and the number of equivalent
> icedays as indicators to evaluate the product and predict remaining shelf
> life.
>
>
>
> What is Shelf life?
>
>
>
> There is no such thing as a set shelf life for any species of fish or fish
> product; Shelf life varies according to circumstances and criteria chosen to
> determine it. It depends entirely on who is using the information and what
> the product is to be used for (Barbosa et al. 2002). The shelf-life of
> seafood to be consumed raw, is clearly shorter than for that which is to be
> cooked, and different criteria apply.
>
>
>
> Thus, the shelf-life of any seafood depends on limits that are arbitrarily
> set. These limits may range from expert opinion, through 'rules of thumb'
> based on experience, or they may be set by rigorous investigations of market
> and consumer opinion. A good indication of shelf life is when the seller no
> longer wishes to have their name on the product. As an example, in order to
> protect their brand name as a supplier of top product, many traders sell
> poorer product under a separate name, although it may still be quite fit for
> consumption.
> ________________________________
> From: owner-seafood@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-seafood@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf
> Of Steve_Lamming@youngsbluecrest.com
> Sent: Wednesday, 11 April 2007 10:28 PM
> To: seafood@ucdavis.edu
> Subject: "Fresh" vs Frozen.
>
>
> Hi all,
> There are a lot of claims and counter-claims in the UK at present about the
> relative merits of "fresh" fish vs frozen in terms of quality. Is anyone
> aware of any objective research conducted on this topic, or do any of you
> have a clear opinion or experience in the field?
> (I know there will be some who say the you can't get fresher than frozen at
> sea!)
> Thanks and regards,
> Steve
>
>
>
> ****************************************************************************
> This email and any attachments are confidential and solely for the use of
> the intended recipient. They may contain material protected by legal,
> professional or other privilege.
> If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for
> delivering to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not
> disclose, copy, distribute or retain this email or its attachments.
> Unless stated to the contrary, any opinions expressed in this message are
> those of the individual and may not necessarily reflect the views of the
> company. Although this email and its attachments are believed to be free of
> any virus or other defect, it is the responsibility of the recipient to
> ensure that they are virus free and no responsibility is accepted by the
> Company for any loss or damage arising from receipt or use thereof.
>
> Young's Seafood Ltd.
> Registered in England No. 3628503
> Registered Office: Ross House, Wickham Road, Grimsby, DN31 3SW
> VAT No. GB 716529721
>
> http://www.youngsseafood.co.uk http://www.macrae.co.uk
>
> ________________________________
>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 269.0.0/754 - Release Date: 9/04/2007
> 10:59 PM
>
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 11 2007 - 23:41:28 PDT